Alaskan Brewing Celebrates 40 Years with 40 Beers

This week, the founders and managers of Alaskan Brewing in Juneau, Alaska gathered for a live press conference to discuss their 40th Anniversary and a special 40 Beers for 40 Years variety pack they just released.

I was grateful to have participated in the session as they discussed their roots as a company, their relationship with the local environment inspiring their dedication to sustainable practices, and tasted through some of their core offerings.

It was important to me since it took me back to my first days of living in Oregon 16 years ago – my own return to the West Coast after a 6 year hiatus in Chicago & Minneapolis. Within the first few weeks of arriving in Portland I found Alaskan’s flagship Amber at my local New Seasons Market, drawn in by the Alt-style Beer designation.

As a long-time fanboy of New Belgium’s Fat Tire, finding this new-to-me creation was in many ways the perfect transition away from my maltier foundations, towards balance, and a Pacific Northwest sensibility.

I suppose I was also drawn in by my own history, having visited family in Alaska a number of times as a kid. While spending time in Fairbanks & Anchorage wasn’t nearly as wild or adventurous as the various waterways of the Inside Passage, it was, at the time, quite the departure from my native Los Angeles.

So yes, while my Alaskan adventures actually predate those of Alaskan’s founders Marcy & Geoff Larson, my connection to this brand over 20 years later had an immediate impact, pushing me to learn more about the European foundations of brewing.

Humble Amber Beginnings

As part of the tasting during Tuesday’s virtual press conference (available here), we of course started by sampling their flagship Amber, something that’s changed little since my first taste over 16 years ago. What did surprise me though is the backstory of how it came to be.

The original recipe, initially brewed at home by Geoff, was the confluence of two items Marcy found while searching through the town’s local archives: an ingredient list for a beer brewed by Douglas City Brewing and a newspaper article describing the process.

It was a slightly heartier ale created during the days of the Yukon Gold Rush, around 1907. It was an Ale that lent itself well to the naturally cold fermentation temperatures of Alaska. It became their first, and still best selling beer, Alaskan Amber.

Come December 26th of 1986, the Chinook Alaskan Brewing Company (their original name until 1991) sprang to life as 10 volunteers joined Geoff & Marcy in bottling the first 253 cases of Alaskan Amber over the course of 12 hours, which naturally sold out immediately.

Sustainability & Awards

While it’d be easy to say “the rest is history” at this point, since then, Alaskan Brewing has accomplished so much more since their nascent days that’s it almost difficult to encapsulate, but I’ll try my best! They’ve simultaneously set the bar for not only sustainable brewing practices, such as their patented Beer Powered Beer® process, but have also won more medals at international brewing competitions that just about any other craft brewery in history.

In 1998, Alaskan became the first craft brewery to utilize carbon capture technology to repurpose CO₂ during the fermentation process, just two years after they designed and installed a spent grain dryer, stabilizing grain for shipping to cattle farms in Washington.

Ten years later they became the first craft brewery to install a mash press filter, then in 2015 installed a Biomass Steam Boiler, enabling them to power their brew kettles with their own spent grain. They now possess 5 national and international patents for this sustainable approach to brewing.

At the same time, collectively the brewery has amassed 349 national and international medals, including 21 medals at GABF for their prized Smoked Porter, the most awarded to any single beer ay GABF.

40 Beers for 40 Years

While Alaskan has put together what maybe the largest variety pack in the history of craft beer at 40 cans, Tuesday’s tasting featured 3 of their core brands of the 10 total featured in the box.

The second release we tasted through, their Wit-Style Ale aptly named White, was another I’ve always appreciated in their brand catalogue and has indeed changed little, still featuring freshly ground coriander & a citrusy orange peel finish, yet without the esters traditionally found from in a Belgian yeast strain.

Our third and final beer of the session was their Icy Bay IPA, named for the wet-suited “blue face” surfers of nearby Yakutat Bay and Icy Bay, it’s brewed more to the specifications of a traditional English IPA. While still a more modern take, it features a blend of Cascade, Bravo, Calypso, Summit, and Apollo hops, plus premium two-row pale and specialty malts.

Alaskan Brewing donates a portion of their proceeds from Icy Bay IPA to promote the health and sustainability of oceans, waterways and coastlines. The funds are donated to a non-profit called Coastal CODE (Clean Oceans Depend on Everyone) a philanthropic organization founded by Alaskan in 2007. Through their fundraising and volunteer efforts, they’ve assisted local cleaning projects in collecting over 1 million pounds of trash in local waterways.

Rounding out the 10 unique brands comprising the 40 beer box (four of each) are 5 other core brands including Class 5 – Pale Ale, Juneau Juice – Juicy IPA, Kölsch, Husky IPA, and Wildness Golden Ale. Rounding out the set are 2 of their newest, seasonal creations: Ascender Pale Ale and Excursion West Coast IPA, both available in their Adventure Variety Pack.

Be sure to check out Alaskan’s Beer Finder page to seek out availability near you!

Still Blazing New Trails

In addition to the aforementioned seasonal releases, Alaskan has also started innovating in a variety of other ways I never even realized, including starting their own distilling program in 2019 and creating a series of award-winning Hard Seltzers.

While Alaskan Distilling’s Camp Fire series of canned cocktails are only available in Alaska, their Coastal Agave Paloma, Solstice Vodka Lemonade, and Musk Ox Vodka Mule cocktails are created with liquor from their own stills and are available in limited locations outside of Alaska.

Each of their 4 different Hard Seltzers have been winning awards since 2020 and quite honestly have some of the coolest branding I’ve seen. While these appear to be more widely available than the cocktails and can be found via the Beer Finder, I’m not certain of their availability in Oregon.

In the end, I’m extremely honored to have had Alaskan Brewing reach out to me about their 40th Anniversary, for not only is it a rare accomplishment to flourish as a brewery – especially when considering the remote nature of their location, but I’ve also been blown away by all they do for sustainable brewing, local environmental causes, and innovation in production brewing.

They’re all amazing accomplishments that the entire team in Juneau should be proud of. Cheers!